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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Kadiolaria,” in 1878 ; to wit, that “had this illustrious natur- 
alist done no other scientific work than the publication of his 
magnificent and classical work c Die Kadiolarien,’ that work 
alone would suffice to procure him everlasting fame.” (Memoir, 
p. 139.) 
Haeckel’s is undoubtedly a magnificent work, and one preg- 
nant with the results of almost unparalleled industry and study. 
But its utility is marred beyond redemption by the unconcealed 
resolve to work out, and down to, an all-engulfing hypothesis 
which renders it impossible for anyone but a professed disciple 
of the Haeckelian method to accept its teachings. Of course, 
of intentional misdirection no one would dream of charging 
Haeckel. Whenever he errs, it is because he is Haeckel — the 
slave of a dominant idea — of the “ fiery pantheism ” and point- 
blank materialism that blind him to everything but the goal 
he is rushing towards. 
But I must not be misunderstood. In offering this commen- 
tary on the opinions entertained by Professor Haeckel, I do not 
even assail his hypotheses as hypotheses. Both of them may 
turn out to be true. Evolution has already been proved to be a 
method of Nature. But, without its being at all requisite to 
admit that Haeckel’s 'primordial slime was, at some anterior 
epoch of the earth’s history, spontaneously generated, I can- 
didly confess I see no reason whatever for regarding it as im- 
possible for the chemist to succeed in evolving, out of the 
inorganic elements and natural forces at his command, a com- 
pound capable of evincing vital activity. What I do assail is, 
the tendency of the Haeckelian method to gallop on altogether 
in advance of demonstrated fact, beyond which the scientific 
biologist is not warranted in advancing by a single hair’s 
breadth. All he may legitimately do is to use his hypotheses 
as such only. The moment he does more, and permits himself 
to talk seriously of an admitted “ assumption,” on which he has 
already based a system, as having u been proved to be a neces- 
sary hypothesis ” — in other words, claiming the right to say 
necesse , ergo sit , he merges at once into the mere speculator, 
the foundations of whose edifice are of sand.* 
It is quite inexcusable enough for systematists to persist in 
applying a definite term to a portion of structure which belies 
the very definition it conveys, and to make what is little better 
than an unsupported assumption the basis of such an erroneous 
and yet positively stated dictum as the following : — “ The yellow 
cells t are undoubtedly cells multiplying by spontaneous division 
of their cell contents, each division surrounding itself by its own 
See Haeckel’s “ History of Creation,” Vol. ii. p. 278. 
t See on p. 274. 
